Let's Hear It For The Boys (jersey, History)

June 12, 2006|By Jack Zink Theater Writer

The Jersey Boys won best musical and the top acting citations in a late surge of upsets at the 60th Annual Tony Awards.

The Drowsy Chaperone, a fizzy tribute to the musical comedies of the 1920s, won five awards including best score and best book. But the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons apparently convinced voters of broader appeal.

In what has become a rare twist, a single play won the most awards. Alan Bennett's The History Boys, about British high school students studying for their college entrance exams, won a total of six including best play and Nicholas Hytner as director. The play's serio-comic team of teachers also won: Richard Griffiths as actor and Frances de la Tour as featured actress.

In musicals, John Lloyd Young won best actor as Valli, and Christian Hoff was named featured actor as wise-guy Tommy DeVito, the band's early leader, bringing Jersey Boys' total to four including a lighting design nod.

Both were visibly stunned. Hoff thanked his immigrant "papa," who died at the age of 52 after a hardscrabble life, and said, "As a proud first-generation American, I celebrate this story every night."

Young also thanked his late father, saying, "I'm remembering that first early struggle we got through and somehow it feels like just the two of us again."

When The Pajama Game rolled past Sweeney Todd as best musical revival, Roundabout Theatre Company artistic director Todd Haimes thanked Joy Abbott among the writers who tinkered with the script by her late husband, the legendary George Abbott, and Richard Bissell.

LaChanze won best actress in a musical, saving one spot for The Color Purple in the winners' circle.

A total of 10 awards, seven of them competitive, were presented off-camera in a non-televised hourlong preview. Viewers who weren't keeping score online didn't know where the races stood until a taped recap at 10:15 p.m.

Presenting some awards before the broadcast marked a return to a practice during the 1990s, when the CBS network limited the Tonys to a two-hour broadcast. As a relief valve, PBS carried the first hour for several years. CBS now carries three hours, but with more award categories and more production numbers, the whole ceremony has grown to four hours, rivaling the Oscars -- but without the Oscars' ratings.

Sunday night's show may fare more poorly than recent years, without a celebrity emcee. Also, this year's show is a week later than usual, pushing it up against the an NBA championship series game between the Miami Heat and the Dallas Mavericks.

The 60th annual awards used a total of 60 guest stars -- basically an expanded lineup of presenters, for marquee luster. But it was the musical numbers that gave the program its sizzle, especially considering the generally tepid, professionally-correct acceptance speeches.

Songs performed during the show had an appealing musical variety, from the invigorating pop hit Who Loves You from Jersey Boys to the creepy, dramatic The Ballad of Sweeney Todd, and the old-fashioned star turn by Sutton Foster in Show Off from The Drowsy Chaperone, all in the first hour.

Rob Ashford's nominated choreography and the upbeat opening number to The Wedding Singer also will sell tickets this week. The gospel closing with the full cast from The Color Purple played better on the screen than the dramatic Hell No by nominee Felicia P. Fields.